Wolf Moon Rising (45 page)

like a stone. She knew she was going to throw up, but she swal-

lowed, trying to keep it down.

David was still lingering near the door. “Ms. Harpignies,

I—”

“Are you still here? Get out of here, David. What’s the mat-

ter with you?”

Jackie lurched over, grabbing her stomach. “Mom, I can’t.”

“Th

en I’ll go,” said Antoinette. “I’ll leave your ticket. You

can make it to the station, can’t you? You can meet me. Catch a

later train. When you feel better—” She rose and walked shak-

ily to the door, seeming propelled by will alone, then turned

to say good- bye. But when she saw Jackie’s expression, she

stopped.

“Oh, honey, oh dear—” She came back to the bed and caught

her daughter’s head, held it while Jackie vomited. Th

en word-

lessly she gathered up the soiled sheet and took it away. She

came back with a dish of water and a cloth, and with shaking

hands washed Jackie’s face, gently, saying, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I

know it’s awful for you.”

Jackie closed her eyes and remembered when she had been

small and her mother had ministered to her during her head-

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aches. Th

e pain was like a siren through her brain. But her

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mother’s touch, so rare and so close, somehow eased the fl ashing

waves and left a dull ache.

“Mother, I know something I need to tell you . . .”

“Shhhh, it’s alright.”

“It’s about Barnabas.”

Jackie felt her mother stiff en. “What about Barnabas?”

“I know what he is.”

Antoinette waited, saying nothing, simply staring at Jackie,

who could see the planes of her mother’s face sinking into her

skull, her ghostly paleness accentuated by the light from the

window.

“I know he’s a vampire—”

“What? Don’t be ridiculous—” But her voice was without

energy. “Th

ere’s no such thing—” Th

en Antoinette collapsed,

her body caving inward, and she leaned over and took the rag

from the water, wrung it out, and placed in again over Jackie’s

eyes. Jackie sighed, feeling the pain subside, if only for a mo-

ment. She heard her mother say, “I’ll get your medicine.”

Jackie watched her mother stumble on the way to the bath-

room, and then she felt the cool cloth again, and soothing fi n-

gers massaged her neck, and then there was the white pill and

the drink of cold water.

“Mom,” she said faintly, and reached for her. Antoinette

leaned down to the bed and kissed her, and for a long moment

they held each other. Jackie could smell the pot in her mother’s

hair and feel how thin she was—

the bones of her back

protruding— and a new surge of guilt welled up in her. She had

felt neglected, ignored, nothing more than an irritant in her

mother’s life. But it was she who should have been paying atten-

tion. Her migraine would pass, as awful as it was, but some-

thing clutched at her heart. Her mother was gravely ill. Panic

rushed in, blotting out everything else.

It was a moment before she realized that her mother was

confi ding to her, her voice a murmur. “I have no will of my own.

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Lara Parker

I despise him but I cannot resist him. He has hideous powers,

and the things he does I could never tell you, disgusting, hu-

miliating. I did everything I could to fi ght him. He sucked all

the re sis tance out of me.”

“And yet you think you can escape?”

“He sleeps during the day— in that awful coffi

n— and he

doesn’t suspect. He thinks I am faithful, I have made sure of

that. I can leave before he summons me again.” She began to

weep pitifully, clinging to Jackie, her chest heaving with sobs,

and Jackie experienced that strange moment that comes at last

to a child, when she becomes the parent, wiser and stronger

than the one who gave birth to her and raised her.

It should be me
, she thought in a sudden realization.
I am the
one who should care for him. I knew it from the fi rst. I was the one
who made him what he is.

“Are you strong enough?” she said, looking into her moth-

er’s eyes. “Can you go alone? I will follow you. Soon. In just a

few hours.”

“I don’t want to leave you—”

“Please, you must. I’ll . . . I can’t go without telling David

good- bye.” Th

en she remembered. “Mother—

we found the

painting!”

“No . . .”

“It’s damaged, but it can be fi xed. Maybe Quentin can help

us—”

“I don’t care about the painting anymore.”

And Antoinette fainted, falling into Jackie’s arms.

“David!” Jackie called out, but he had already left. Her head

still throbbing, she pulled her mother into her bed and covered

her with her quilt. Antoinette moaned, her eyes still closed,

then murmured, “Sleep . . . I must sleep.”

“Mom?” Th

rough her fl ickering gaze Jackie watched her

mother breathing, and saw her wasted skin, relaxed now and

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gray. She had to somehow fi nd a way to get her to a hospital. A

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transfusion . . . Th

e room was blossoming, becoming blurry,

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and she remembered she had taken the medication. So tired . . .

unable to fi ght the drowsiness fl ooding through her, she

stretched out beside her mother and reached around her with

her arm.

Antoinette was missing, and, pacing his basement sanctu-

ary, Barnabas was becoming angry and anxious, wonder-

ing what could have become of her. At every creak in the walls

of this old house, he looked toward the doorway expecting to

see her familiar form descending the stair. He found he was

even looking forward to her sour disposition, eager to see the

cool cut of her eyes or even to hear another of her sarcastic

remarks. He summoned her, but there was no response, only

emptiness.

In spite of her stubborn reluctance she had nursed him, and

he had regained enough strength to consider a foray out into the

night, fi rst a trip to the cemetery to retrieve the painting and

then to the Collinsport docks to hunt.

He would grow weak again if he did not feed.

Finally, tiring, he sat and contemplated his bizarre situa-

tion. He looked about at the dark cellar that was his home, the

place where his casket had remained hidden since he had re-

turned to Collinwood. Th

e family had always believed he was a

distant cousin from En gland, one that held an uncanny resem-

blance to the Barnabas Collins whose portrait hung in the foyer.

Th

e truth that no one knew was that he had been released from

the Collins mausoleum after sleeping for almost two hundred

years. Th

en had come the experiment and Julia’s intervention.

As an ordinary human he had avoided this basement in disgust,

but now that he was a vampire again he had no other choice but

to remain here.

Th

e walls were the stone foundation of the house, and brick

arches held the fl oor joists above his head, still blackened from

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the fi re that had destroyed the mansion before it had been

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Lara Parker

restored. Th

e stones exuded a black and oily sheen and cobwebs

hung in fi lmy draperies across the corners of the ceiling.
A suit-able sanctuary for a monster
, he thought wearily.

A lonely heart grows attached to a daily companion. Where

could she be? He had become accustomed to her seated beside

him, singing her mournful songs or simply lying in his arms.

He had kept her weak. If she were to regain her strength, he

knew she would leave him, or make another clumsy attempt to

destroy him, but he worried that he had drained her too much.

He had planned to let her go. Each time he embraced her

he took less, for fear of turning her, which he did not wish to

do. He was deeply disappointed to have discovered that she was

not Angelique even though every gesture, vocal infl ection, and

contemptuous glance replicated the witch in his memory, her

image etched on his brain. Although he tried in vain to dislodge

the conviction that she was Angelique, at times when he looked

at her, he was still certain. And even though his obsession with

Antoinette had diminished as his need for her had grown, he

had to admit she had nevertheless become valuable to him.

Missing her, he called to mind her smoky odor, her silken fl esh,

and her curved body beneath his hands. He tried to tell himself he

did not love her, or even like her, but something about her amused

him, her defi ance in the face of his disgusting demands, her

resilience, and even her courage.

He saw everything clearly, but clarity brought no peace.

Nor did it aff ord happiness of any kind. For a vampire, under-

standing is like walking through a desert where no green

fl ourishes, a barren landscape, a vast plain bereft of water or

wind. At times he found himself reliving the moments after his

fi rst human death when Angelique had cursed him to eternal

misery:
You wanted your Josette so much, Barnabas. Well you shall
have her. But not in the way you imagined. You have become one of
the living dead. You will never rest. And you will never be able to

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love. For whoever loves you will die.

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In rage and disbelief he had turned on her and strangled her

screaming:
And do you still love me, Angelique? Did you know you
would be the fi rst?
How fi lled with hatred he had been then. And his entreaty:
I would rather be lying in my coffi

n with a stake

through my heart than be the way

I am now. Th

an go through eternity as what I have become!

Time to go into the night, to seek a new victim, one that

would keep him more alive than dead for another day. As he had

done so often in the past, time to wander the back streets along

the docks where vagrants with no desire to live slept in piss-

smelling corners of the gutter. Time to light the fl ame one more

time.

When David reached Collinwood he was surprised to see a

white van and the sheriff ’s squad car parked in front.

Quentin came to the door and tried to steer David away from

the corpse— in a black plastic bag zippered up the front— being

carried out on a stretcher.

“What happened?”

“Uh, it seems . . . well . . . an accident. You don’t need to

see it.” Quentin placed a hand on David’s arm. David was

shocked to see that the hand was veined, the bones show-

ing through the skin. He looked up at Quentin and won-

dered whether he had any memory of their meeting in the

past. He thought he had never seen him look so haggard

and— he might as well admit it— old. He had always consid-

ered Quentin a model of masculine good looks, but now three-

day beard shadowed his gaunt face, the jowls hanging on the

skull. He remembered the painting, safety hidden, and he was

about to tell Quentin when his cousin said in a gravelly voice,

“I think you’d better go in the house. Blair wants to talk to the

family.”

“Blair?”

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Lara Parker

“Yes, the expert on the occult, remember?” And Quentin

smiled conspiratorially at David, and then winked. Perhaps he

did remember after all.

Roger, Elizabeth, and Carolyn were gathered in the foyer,

their faces drawn and their voices hushed. On the other hand,

Dr. Nathanial Blair was energized as if he had discovered a

nugget of gold and was taking it to the surveyor’s offi

ce. He held

a triangle of black velvet in his hand.

“Is anyone missing?” said Blair, looking around. “What about

the servants?”

“David,” said Roger, “it’s about time you came home. Will

you go to the kitchen and fetch Mrs. Johnson and take a look

out back to see if you can fi nd Willie?”

“Actually, Father, I’ve come for Julia. Jackie’s mother is sick

and I think she needs a doctor.”

Blair brightened with new interest. “Th

ere is a doctor living

here?”

“Well, yes, Dr. Hoff man, the family physician,” said Eliza-

beth coolly. “Although I haven’t seen her or spoken with her for

several days. I think she must have gone away. Or moved out

without telling us.”

“Oh, nothing of the kind.” A ner vous but rather arrogant

voice came from the top of the stair. “I had to make a short